The Health Benefits of Chocolate

By Franklin St. John

Who in their right mind doesn’t like chocolate? I know when I was a child, chocolate candy was my favorite goodie. As I got to adulthood, however, weight control became a concern and general health became important to me. The main problem with chocolate products is that their high level of refined sugar wreaks havoc on our bodies. This same problem exists in sugared sodas, children’s cereals and a host of other products.

Chocolate products do have one beneficial ingredient: cocoa. In fact, studies have shown that pure cocoa has many health benefits. But because it is so bitter, the development of chocolate products relied heavily on sugar to make the cocoa palatable. Not just a little sugar, mind you, but huge quantities. As a result, more diet-related health problems such as diabetes and obesity began to be evident—and remember that refined sugar actually feeds cancer cells.

There is a way around this problem. If we could eliminate the sugar from chocolate products, the cocoa could give many benefits to the body.

With this in mind, about 15 years ago, HerbaSway developed a chocolate liquid concentrate without sugar. If not sugar, then what? We developed a proprietary blend of a special stevia extract with a high concentrate of Lo han quo extract. This combination gives the chocolate liquid concentrate a sweetness that tastes every bit as good as a sugary product, but with no calories.

What could be better? It’s very difficult to convince people in general that the health benefits of a bitter-tasting product are worth the pain of swallowing it. This liquid solves that problem—plus our use of cocoa extract eliminates the fats from cocoa, which makes it possible to have a product with zero calories.

Now that we know there’s a goodtasting, zero-calorie cocoa product available, let’s look at some of the health benefits that cocoa has to offer.

Medical literature abounds with various studies that show how compounds in cocoa help the body stay healthy. In fact, many of the studies show health improvements that are possible even if a person is not healthy. I recommend that you look up cocoa in the literature and read about the studies that show how it can help keep you healthy.

Flavonoids are what give cocoa its health benefits. Included in this class are two primary antioxidants, procyandins and epicatechins. As you well know, antioxidants are very important to your health and wellbeing. So while these two antioxidants are important, when we developed our chocolate product, we wanted to make sure that it would have even more and varied antioxidants than straight cocoa has. That is why we added an extract of white tea. This addition gives our chocolate a whole range of polyphenols as protection from free radical damage, but what’s just as important is that it tastes really good.

We’ve all heard the expression that beauty is only skin-deep, but that’s not true. Beauty starts from the inside and comes directly from antioxidants inside us.

People who are serious about their skin’s health and beauty should consider taking two full droppers of HerbaSway’s Chocolate in a few ounces of regular or seltzer water two or three times a day. They’ll see noticeable improvement in their skin in a relatively short time. Consider giving a bottle of HerbaSway’s Chocolate with the regular box of chocolates you give for the holidays.

Franklin St. John, doctor of Chinese medicine and founder of HerbaSway Laboratories, was taught traditional Chinese herbal medicine and qigong by a Taoist master from the mountains of China. For more information, visit HerbaSway.com or call 1.800.672.7322.